East Naples mom added to Collier sheriff's missing persons website

RYAN MILLS

2:00 PM, Jun 6, 2010

2:19 PM, Jun 6, 2010

Elizanne Delly cries as she thinks about her daughter Marie Delly, a mother of four, who was last seen May 17 leaving her job at Walmart, 3451 U.S. 41 East, near the Collier County government center. Lexey Swall/Staff

Copy photo of Marie Delly, 31, a mother of four who was last seen May 17 leaving her job at Walmart, 3451 U.S. 41 East, near the Collier County government center. Lexey Swall/Staff

NAPLES - They stare back from the computer screen — 28 men, women and children — gone but not forgotten.

Adji Desir, Terrance Williams, Felipe Santos, Wendy Hudakoc: they are the faces of the Collier County Sheriff's Office's active missing persons cases, dating back to the early 1980s, which are listed on the agency's website.

In mid-May, the Sheriff's Office added the most recent face to the already crowded list — Marie Delly, a 34-year-old mother from Golden Gate who was last seen three weeks ago today on surveillance video leaving her job at a Walmart.

"We all have the mentality that she'll be found," said Delly's sister, Bobbi Lene, 25. "That's what we're all thinking in our mind, that she'll be found."

Hundreds of people are reported missing every year in Collier County, but most are recovered within a couple of days or weeks, said Sgt. Ken Becker, of the Sheriff's Office's Major Crimes Bureau Exploitation Unit.

In the United States, 100,000 missing persons cases are active on any given day, according to the FBI.

Authorities say they treat missing adults and missing children similarly, but there are some differences, particularly in terms of reporting.

The Jennifer Kesse/Tiffany Sessions Missing Person's Act, which was passed by the Florida Legislature in 2008, requires that law enforcement enter all missing persons under 26 years old into national and state databases within two hours and send out alerts to the media. The previous cutoff was 18 years old.

For a missing adult over 26 to make the list, there must be reason to believe they are endangered, Becker said.

"With an adult, they have a little bit more leeway," Becker said. "If they don't want to be somewhere, in a relationship or with their family, they can get up and leave."

Billy Young, a coordinator with the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, a National Institute of Justice clearinghouse for missing persons, said that there are more federal guidelines for taking missing children reports than there are for adults. At the state level, the laws vary for missing adults.

There are many reasons why an adult may disappear, Young said, including: dementia, unhappy home lives, bad financial situations, and foul play.

"The theory in the United States is, if you're an adult and you want to go missing, you have that right," Young said. "As we know, a lot of times adults go missing and it's not by choice."

If you have information about missing persons, contact your local law enforcement agency.

■ Collier County Sheriff's Office — (239) 252-9300

■ Lee County Sheriff's Office — (239) 477-1000

■ Naples Police and Fire Department — (239) 213-4844

■ Marco Island Police Department — (239) 389-5050

■ Fort Myers Police Department — (239) 321-7700

■ Crime Stoppers — 1-800-780-TIPS (8477)

In the Marie Delly case, Becker said, sheriff's officials are conducting parallel missing person and criminal investigations, much as they did when 6-year-old Adji Desir disappeared from Immokalee in January 2009.

They are in the process of conducting forensic tests on Delly's computer, and are trying to check her bank records for recent activity.

"With an adult, if somebody is thinking about ending a relationship, they may stockpile money where they don't have to make ATM transactions," Becker said.

Delly's husband, 31-year-old Mathnald Dareus, told investigators that he dropped his wife off at work at 8:30 a.m. May 17, but said he didn't pick her up and doesn't know who did. He said he doesn't know where his wife may be.

The couple argued the weekend before Delly's disappearance, family members said. They said detectives told them Dareus failed two questions of a four-question polygraph test recently.

The Sheriff's Office hasn't named Dareus a suspect in the case, and hasn't discussed the polygraph test publicly.

Family members said Delly, who doesn't have a driver license, wouldn't have left her four children without notice. On Thursday, they said Dareus took custody of the couple's youngest child, 3-year-old Kendra Dareus, who had been living with Delly's mother in Lehigh Acres since Delly's disappearance.

"The Sheriff's Office said they are 99.9 percent that she went into a vehicle," Lene said. "Someone took off with her. I'm pretty confident someone took her. She didn't take off by herself."

Delly, of 2120 16th Place S.W,, has black hair and brown eyes, and was wearing tan or khaki pants and a dark blue polo shirt. She has tattoos with the name "Tyrese" on her right shoulder and "Mathnald" on her left shoulder.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Collier County Sheriff's Office at (239) 252-9300, or if you wish to remain anonymous, Crime Stoppers at 1-800-780-TIPS (8477).